Well Let me beg to differ Monsieur...Life starts with a name Your name - In the western world you are named at birth and in many Asian cultures you have a "naming ceremony" but the child is born with the family name in place.
As we move across cultures there is a major disparity on whats a first name, last name, family name, middle name and such. Not only many names across the globe have 4-5 words we do not know what's what! Call it anything Voornaam, Achternaam, Familienaam, Naam, Prenom, Nom or simple First name, Middle Name(s) or Last Name its still confusing. It wonderful each part of the name actually has a name to it...superb and all those who are reading this would relate to a simple 'first' name and 'last' name as what comes first and last.
In Polite society we have prefixes like Mr., Dr., Mrs., Miss etc and the same way in French Monsieur or Madame and in Dutch Meneer or Mevrouw. Now I give you a name Dr. Grijs Phillipe. Kindly decipher this for me how do you address him? Dr. Philippe or Dr. Grijs and what is the first and what is the last name...Recently I had my most embarrassing moment in sometime when I got this wrong and the gentleman was offended. Well that's why this blog to help anyone reading...My dear friends welcome to the world of confusion. For me Phillipe sounded like the first name but I kept scratching my head on why it was written second and I got caught anyway.
I apologised as he was my own doctor and couldn't afford to insult him. I said across cultures this gets difficult and had to correct myself. End of story there then I did tons of research mighty google and discussed with many neighbours and reached a few key take aways which I'm sharing:
- " The study of names is called onomastics, a field which touches on linguistics, history, anthropology, psychology, sociology, philology and much more." Source Wiki...In Human readable language that means names have a big history they were just not made up SO NEVER assume anything about anyone's name. Kindly respect each one! Try to find out their meaning or origins people actually love to talk about these just try it out for small talk soon...
- RULE 1: In European and European influenced cultures like the Americas, Africa and Oceania its more common to write the name in a common format : First name Middle name Last name.
RULE 2: Now there's something called the Eastern Order which reverses this...obviously has to clash with RULE 1 (didn't I say welcome to confusion sometime back) their format : Last Name Middle Name(s) First Name (ouch)!
To avoid confusion about why is first last and last first lets rename these and make an easy format : Family Name Middle Name(s) Given Name how's that...thats readable.
AND please believe that many countries in Europe actually follow this. Slovekian countries, Greece, part of Germany, Netherlands!!!
RULE 3: The Far eastern countries China, Japan, Korea and friendly neighbours all follow the European Order of writing names. Infact in Japanese they write vertically and the Family name comes first and their format is : Upper Name Middle Name(s) Given name
In simple words that means kindly ask new people what is the family name when they give you a card and don't commit faux pas like I did! I was on phone luckily and heard the tirade...oops yes!
- Then guess what some cultures\ countries said we don't care about all these and go by ONE single name called the Mononym wow smart! Well u may use the prefixes or not its upto your association with the person. If you are a friend drop the prefix if its a business acquaintance then greet with a prefix! Easy ain't it?
That's name formats...and in my friendly interviews and discussions in the neighbourhood and my Belgian friends I heard many say that in Belgium everyone writes RULE 2 Eastern Order format which is not true. Belgium is a true cosmopolitan city and there are settlers from various cultures generations ago moved from other places and how they write their names hasn't changed. Majority of the French and Dutch Belgians would write as in RULE 1. But the mixed cultures as in father is Greek mom is English get very confused and go by the Eastern Order at times.
One of my neighbours got really excited on this topic and gave me her interesting opinion. She said please understand the history of Europe we have had an interesting dominating neighbour namely United Kingdom seeking to conquer the world from generations ago centuries ago. To defy them some countries in Europe also started following Eastern Order just to spite them. Long ago the world was united and Eastern Asia was not far away we just split as you know from the geography and ofcourse some ideas and traditions are the same. Aren't many Russian and Indian names running parallel even now?
Well hats off to her bold answers she's a Professor of Sociology at Leuven university and teaches Mphil, Phd students. I'm blessed to be her neighbour as we have such interesting discussions...
So finally how do we read Dr. Grijs Philippe? Ofcourse its easy call him Dr. Grijs with respect and if possible fold your hands he loves it! He's a French Belgian with some Greek origins roots four generations ago he told me a few meetings and greetings with respect later...wow and my research worked right? I shall find a minute or two to tell him he led me to new discoveries! But first impressions are really important luckily I goofed on the phone after my first few impressions so I survived.
When in quandary always ask! Or read the full name...that's a last option but better than goofing!
Have fun and hope this blog helps a few readers! Have to end with my favourite quote of all times!
Well yes we agree and we shall try to get it right too.
You may read Part one too for more information.
(I have used my doctors name with permission told him its getting onto my blog! As ever any opinions expressed here are purely mine and not influenced by any culture and not intended to hurt anyone)
